"I want everyone..."
This post is the result of my long-term collaboration with the Samara historian Alexei Stepanov, who owned the idea of this topic. We worked on the topic at the turn of the 80-90s, but then youth, youthful maximalism and lack of information did not allow us to complete the study with serious scientific work. Now, for more than 20 years, a lot of new information has been revealed, but the intensity of passions has subsided. Therefore, this article has lost its then indignantly accusatory pathos, addressed to the Soviet historical "pseudo-science", but has significantly replenished with specific information. Moreover, today I have absolutely no desire to engage in scientific activities and create serious but boring scientific work, dotted with references to sources that make it difficult to read. Therefore, I present to everyone who is interested a simple journalistic article about the heroes of air rams who were not lucky to be born in the USSR, and therefore they lost the right to respect for their courage among Russian people, who, in fact, always appreciated courage and heroism. I warn you right away, since a lot has been written about Soviet rams, I will only talk about foreign "rams", mentioning ours only if they are superior - "not for the sake of humiliation, but for justice" ...
For a long time, Soviet official historical science, using the example of air rams, emphasized the special patriotic heroism of Soviet pilots, which was unattainable for representatives of other nations. In our literature in Soviet times, only domestic and Japanese air rams were always mentioned; moreover, if the rams of Soviet pilots were represented by our propaganda as a heroic conscious self-sacrifice, then the same actions of the Japanese were for some reason called "fanaticism" and "doom". Thus, all Soviet pilots who made a suicidal attack were surrounded by a halo of heroes, and Japanese "kamikaze" pilots were surrounded by a halo of "anti-heroes". Representatives of other countries were generally denied the heroism of air ramming by Soviet researchers. This prejudice persisted until the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the legacy of many years of suppression of the heroism of the pilots of other countries is still felt today. “It is deeply symbolic that in the vaunted Hitlerite Luftwaffe there was not a single pilot who, at a critical moment, deliberately went for an air ram ... There is also no data on the use of a ram by American and British pilots,” he wrote in 1989 in a special work about rams, Major General of Aviation A.D. Zaitsev. “During the war, such a truly Russian, Soviet form of air combat as an air ram became widespread,” says the fundamental work on the history of domestic aviation “Air Power of the Motherland”, published in 1988. “Air ram is the standard of feat of arms. The diametrically opposite attitude towards the ram was the first moral defeat of the vaunted Nazi aces, a harbinger of our victory ”- this is the opinion of the best Soviet ace of the Great Patriotic War, Ivan Kozhedub, expressed by him in 1990 (by the way, Kozhedub himself did not make a single ram for the war). There are many examples of such a nationalist approach to this problem. Soviet specialists in the history of aviation either did not know, or deliberately lied and hushed up data on rams committed by foreign pilots, although it was enough to turn to the memoirs of Soviet pilots or to foreign works on the history of aviation to make sure that air ramming is a wider phenomenon, as imagined by our historians. Against the background of this attitude to history, the confusion in Russian literature on such issues as: who made the second and third air rams in the world, who first rammed the enemy at night, who made the first ground ram (the so-called "Gastello feat"), no longer seemed surprising, etc. etc. Today, information about the heroes of other countries has become available, and all people interested in the history of aviation have the opportunity to refer to the relevant books to learn about their exploits. I am publishing this post for those who are not familiar with aviation history, but would like to know something about respectable people.
Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov; ram Nesterov (postcard from the 1st World War); Russian pilot Alexander Kozakov
It is well known that the world's first air ram was made by our compatriot Pyotr Nesterov, who destroyed on September 8, 1914, at the cost of his life, the Austrian reconnaissance aircraft Albatross. But the honor of the world's second ram for a long time was attributed either to N. Zherdev, who fought in Spain in 1938, or to A. Gubenko, who fought in China the same year. And only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, information appeared in our literature about the real hero of the second air ramming - the Russian pilot of the 1st World War, Alexander Kozakov, who on March 18, 1915 over the front line shot down an Austrian Albatross aircraft with a ramming attack. Moreover, Kozakov became the first pilot to survive after a suicidal strike on an enemy plane: on a damaged Moran, he managed to make a successful landing at the location of Russian troops. The long hushing up of Kozakov's feat is due to the fact that later this most productive Russian ace of the 1st World War (32 victories) became a White Guard and fought against Soviet power. Such a hero, of course, did not suit Soviet historians, and for many decades his name was deleted from the history of domestic aviation, it turned out to be simply forgotten ...
However, even taking into account the hostility of Soviet historians to the White Guard Kozakov, they did not have the right to assign the title of "rammer No. 2" to either Zherdev or Gubenko, since even during World War I several foreign pilots also made air rams. So, in September 1916, the captain of the British aviation, Aizelwood, who flew a D.H.2 fighter, shot down a German Albatross by hitting the landing gear of his fighter, and then landed “on his belly” at his airfield. In June 1917, Canadian William Bishop, having shot all the cartridges in battle, deliberately cut the wing struts of the German Albatross with the wing of his Nieuport. The wings of the enemy folded from the blow, and the German collapsed to the ground; Bishop made it safely to the airfield. Subsequently, he became one of the best aces of the British Empire: he finished the war with 72 air victories on his account ...
But perhaps the most amazing air ram in World War I was made by the Belgian Willy Coppens, who rammed the German Draken balloon on May 8, 1918. Having unsuccessfully shot all the cartridges in several attacks on the balloon, Coppens hit the wheels of his Anrio fighter on the skin of the Draken; propeller blades also slashed across the tightly inflated canvas, and the Draken burst. At the same time, the HD-1 motor choked due to gas rushing into the hole of the torn cylinder, and Coppens literally did not die by a miracle. He was saved by the oncoming airflow, which spun the propeller with force and started the Anrio's engine as it rolled off the falling Draken. It was the first and only ram in the history of Belgian aviation.
Canadian ace William Bishop; HD-1 "Hanrio" Coppens breaks down from the "Draken" rammed by him; Belgian ace Willy Coppens
After the end of the 1st World War in the history of air rams, of course, there was a break. Once again, ramming, as a means of destroying enemy aircraft, was remembered by pilots during the Spanish Civil War. At the very beginning of this war - in the summer of 1936 - the Republican pilot, Lieutenant Urtubi, who found himself in a hopeless situation, having shot all the cartridges at the Franco planes surrounding him, rammed an Italian Fiat fighter from a frontal angle on a low-speed Nieuport. Both aircraft disintegrated on impact; Urtubi managed to open his parachute, but on the ground he died from wounds received in battle. And about a year later (in July 1937) on the other side of the globe - in China - for the first time in the world a sea ram was carried out, and a massive ram: at the very beginning of Japan's aggression against China, 15 Chinese pilots sacrificed themselves by falling from the air on enemy landing ships and sinking 7 of them!
On October 25, 1937, the world's first night aerial ramming took place. It was carried out in Spain by the Soviet volunteer pilot Yevgeny Stepanov, who under the most difficult conditions destroyed the Italian Savoy-Marcheti bomber with the landing gear of his Chato (I-15) biplane. Moreover, Stepanov rammed the enemy, having almost full ammunition - an experienced pilot, he understood that it was impossible to shoot down a huge three-engine aircraft with his small-caliber machine guns in one go, and after a long line of fire on the bomber, he went to ram so as not to lose the enemy in the dark. After the attack, Yevgeny returned safely to the airfield, and in the morning, in the area indicated by him, the Republicans found the wreckage of Marcheti ...
On June 22, 1939, the first ram in Japanese aviation was made by pilot Shogo Saito over Khalkhin Gol. Clamped "in tongs" by Soviet aircraft, having shot all the ammunition, Saito went for a breakthrough, cutting off part of the tail of the fighter closest to him with his wing, and escaped from the encirclement. And when a month later, on July 21, saving his commander, Saito tried to ram the Soviet fighter again (the ram did not work - the Soviet pilot dodged the attack), his comrades gave him the nickname "King of Rams". The “King of Rams” Shogo Saito, who had 25 victories on his account, died in July 1944 in New Guinea, fighting in the ranks of the infantry (after the loss of the aircraft) against the Americans ...
Soviet pilot Evgeny Stepanov; Japanese pilot Shogo Saito; Polish pilot Leopold Pamula
The first air ram in the 2nd World War was made not by a Soviet pilot, as is commonly believed in our country, but by a Polish pilot. This ram was fired on September 1, 1939 by Lieutenant Colonel Leopold Pamula, deputy commander of the Interceptor Brigade covering Warsaw. Having knocked out 2 bombers in a battle with superior enemy forces, he went on his damaged aircraft to ram one of the 3 Messerschmitt-109 fighters that attacked him. Having destroyed the enemy, Pamula escaped by parachute and made a safe landing in the location of his troops. Six months after the feat of Pamula, another foreign pilot made an air ram: on February 28, 1940, in a fierce air battle over Karelia, a Finnish pilot, Lieutenant Hutanantti, rammed a Soviet fighter and died in the process.
Pamula and Hutanantti were not the only foreign pilots to ram at the start of World War II. During the German offensive against France and Holland, the pilot of the British Battle bomber N.M. Thomas accomplished the feat that we today call "Gastello's feat." Trying to stop the rapid German offensive, on May 12, 1940, the allied command gave the order to destroy the crossings over the Meuse north of Maastricht at any cost, along which enemy tank divisions were crossing. However, German fighters and anti-aircraft guns repelled all British attacks, inflicting horrific losses on them. And then, in a desperate desire to stop the German tanks, flight officer Thomas sent his Battle, shot down by anti-aircraft guns, into one of the bridges, having managed to inform his comrades about the decision ...
Six months later, another pilot repeated the "feat of Thomas." In Africa, on November 4, 1940, another Battle bomber pilot, Lieutenant Hutchinson, was hit by anti-aircraft fire during the bombing of Italian positions in Nyalli (Kenya). And then Hutchinson sent his "Battle" into the thick of the Italian infantry, at the cost of his own death, destroying about 20 enemy soldiers. Eyewitnesses claimed that Hutchinson was alive at the time of the ramming - the British bomber was controlled by the pilot until the very collision with the ground ...
During the Battle of England, British fighter pilot Ray Holmes distinguished himself. During the German raid on London on September 15, 1940, one German Dornier 17 bomber broke through the British fighter screen to Buckingham Palace, the residence of the King of Great Britain. The German was already preparing to drop bombs on an important target when Ray appeared in his path in his Hurricane. Diving on top of the enemy, Holmes cut off Dornier's tail with his wing, but he himself received such severe damage that he was forced to escape by parachute.
Ray Holmes in the cockpit of his Hurricane; ramming ray holmes
The next fighter pilots who took mortal risk for the sake of victory were the Greeks Marino Mitralekses and Grigoris Valkanas. During the Italo-Greek war on November 2, 1940, over Thessaloniki, Marino Mitralexes rammed the Italian bomber Kant Zet-1007 with the propeller of his PZL P-24 fighter. After the ramming, Mitralexes not only landed safely, but also managed, with the help of local residents, to capture the crew of the bomber he had shot down! Volkanas accomplished his feat on November 18, 1940. During a fierce group battle in the Morova region (Albania), he shot all the cartridges and went to ram an Italian fighter (both pilots died).
With the escalation of hostilities in 1941 (attack on the USSR, the entry of Japan and the United States into the war), rams became quite common in air warfare. Moreover, these actions were typical not only for Soviet pilots - pilots of almost all countries participating in the battles made rams.
So, on December 22, 1941, Australian Sergeant Reed, who fought in the British Air Force, having used up all the cartridges, rammed a Japanese Ki-43 army fighter with his Brewster-239, and died in a collision with him. At the end of February 1942, the Dutchman J. Adam, on the same Brewster, also rammed a Japanese fighter, but survived.
US pilots also made rams. The Americans are very proud of their captain Colin Kelly, who in 1941 was presented by propagandists as the first "rammer" of the United States, who rammed the Japanese battleship Haruna on December 10 with his B-17 bomber. True, after the war, the researchers found that Kelly did not commit any ramming. Nevertheless, the American really accomplished a feat, which, due to the pseudo-patriotic inventions of journalists, was undeservedly forgotten. On that day, Kelly bombed the Nagara cruiser and diverted all the fighters covering the Japanese squadron, leaving other aircraft to bombard the enemy calmly. When Kelly was shot down, he tried to the end to maintain control of the aircraft, allowing the crew to leave the dying car. At the cost of his life, Kelly saved ten comrades, but he himself did not have time to escape ...
Based on this information, the first American pilot who actually made a ram was Captain Fleming, commander of the Vindicator bomber squadron of the US Marine Corps. During the Battle of Midway on June 5, 1942, he led his squadron's attack on Japanese cruisers. On approach to the target, his plane was hit by an anti-aircraft shell and caught fire, but the captain continued the attack and bombed. Seeing that the bombs of his subordinates did not hit the target (the squadron consisted of reservists and had poor training), Fleming turned around and dived at the enemy again, crashing into the Mikuma cruiser on a burning bomber. The damaged ship lost combat capability and was soon finished off by other American bombers.
Another American who went on a ram was Major Ralph Cheli, who on August 18, 1943 led his bomber group to attack the Japanese airfield Dagua (New Guinea). Almost immediately, his B-25 Mitchell was hit; then Cheli sent his flaming plane down and crashed into the formation of enemy aircraft standing on the ground, breaking five cars with the Mitchell's hull. For this feat, Ralph Cheli was posthumously awarded the United States' highest honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
In the second half of the war, air rams were also used by many British, although, perhaps, somewhat peculiarly (however, at no less risk to their own lives). The German Lieutenant General Erich Schneider, when describing the use of V-1 projectiles against England, testifies: "the brave English pilots shot down projectiles either in the attack with cannon and machine gun fire, or rammed them from the side." This method of fighting was not chosen by the British pilots by chance: very often, when firing, a German projectile exploded, destroying the pilot who attacked him - after all, during the explosion of the "V" the radius of absolute destruction was about 100 meters, and to hit a small target moving at great speed from a greater distance is very difficult, almost impossible. Therefore, the British (also, of course, at the risk of dying) flew up close to the Fau and pushed it to the ground with a blow of wing to wing. One wrong move, the slightest mistake in calculation - and only a memory remained of the brave pilot ... This is exactly how the best English V-hunter Joseph Berry acted, destroying 59 German shells in 4 months. On October 2, 1944, he went on the attack on the 60th V, and this ram was his last ...
"V Killer" Joseph Berry
so Berry and many other British pilots rammed German V-1 projectiles
With the beginning of the American bomber raids on Bulgaria, Bulgarian aviators also had to carry out air ramming. On the afternoon of December 20, 1943, while repelling a raid on Sofia by 150 Liberator bombers, which were accompanied by 100 Lightning fighters, Lieutenant Dimitar Spisarevski fired all the ammunition of his Bf-109G-2 into one of the Liberators, and then, slipping over the dying car , crashed into the fuselage of the second Liberator, breaking it in half! Both planes crashed to the ground; Dimitar Spisarevski died. Spisarevski's feat made him a national hero. This ram made an indelible impression on the Americans - after the death of Spisarevski, the Americans were afraid of every approaching Bulgarian Messerschmitt ... Nedelcho Bonchev repeated the feat of Dimitar on April 17, 1944. In a fierce battle over Sofia against 350 B-17 bombers, covered by 150 Mustang fighters, Lieutenant Nedelcho Bonchev shot down 2 of the three bombers destroyed by the Bulgarians in this battle. Moreover, Bonchev's second plane, having used up all the ammunition, rammed it. At the moment of the ramming strike, the Bulgarian pilot, along with the seat, was thrown out of the Messerschmitt. Having hardly freed himself from the seat belts, Bonchev escaped by parachute. After Bulgaria went over to the side of the anti-fascist coalition, Nedelcho took part in the battles against Germany, but in October 1944 he was shot down and taken prisoner. During the evacuation of the concentration camp in early May 1945, the hero was shot by a guard.
Bulgarian pilots Dimitar Spisarevski and Nedelcho Bonchev
As noted above, we have heard a lot about the Japanese kamikaze suicide bombers, for whom the ram was actually the only weapon. However, it must be said that ramming was carried out by Japanese pilots even before the advent of "kamikaze", but then these acts were not planned and were usually carried out either in the heat of battle, or when the aircraft was seriously damaged, excluding its return to base. A prime example of such a ramming attempt is Japanese naval aviator Mitsuo Fuchida's dramatic description in his book The Battle of Midway Atoll of Lieutenant Commander Yoichi Tomonaga's last attack. On June 4, 1942, at the critical moment for the Japanese in the battle for Midway, the commander of the torpedo bomber detachment of the Hiryu aircraft carrier, Yoichi Tomonaga, who could well be called the predecessor of the kamikaze, flew into battle on a heavily damaged torpedo bomber, in which one of the tanks was shot through in the previous battle. At the same time, Tomonaga was fully aware that he did not have enough fuel to return from battle. During a torpedo attack on the enemy, Tomonaga tried to ram the American flagship aircraft carrier Yorktown with his Kate, but, shot by all the ship’s artillery, fell to pieces literally a few meters from the side ...
The predecessor of the "kamikaze" Yoichi Tomonaga
Attack of the torpedo bomber "Kate", filmed from the aircraft carrier "Yorktown" during the battle off Midway Atoll.
This is what the last attack of Tomonaga looked like (it is quite possible that it was his plane that was filmed)
However, not all attempts to ram ended for the Japanese pilots so tragically. So, for example, on October 8, 1943, fighter pilot Satoshi Anabuki, on a light Ki-43 armed with only two machine guns, managed to shoot down 2 American fighters and 3 heavy four-engine B-24 bombers in one battle! Moreover, the third bomber, which used up all the ammunition of Anabuki, destroyed it with a ramming blow. After this ramming, the wounded Japanese managed to land his wrecked plane “on forced” on the coast of the Gulf of Burma. For his feat, Anabuki received an award that was exotic for Europeans, but quite familiar to the Japanese: General Kawabe, commander of the troops of the Burmese district, dedicated a poem of his own composition to the heroic pilot...
A particularly “cool” “rammer” among the Japanese was 18-year-old junior lieutenant Masajiro Kawato, who made 4 air rams during his combat career. The first victim of the Japanese suicide attacks was a B-25 bomber, which Kawato shot down over Rabaul with a strike from his Zero, which was left without cartridges (the date of this ram is unknown to me). On November 11, 1943, Masajiro, who escaped by parachute, again rammed an American bomber, while being wounded. Then, in a battle on December 17, 1943, Cavato rammed an Airacobra fighter in a frontal attack, and again escaped by parachute. The last time Masajiro Kawato rammed over Rabaul on February 6, 1944 was a four-engine B-24 Liberator bomber, and again used a parachute to save him. In March 1945, the seriously wounded Kavato was captured by the Australians, and the war ended for him.
And less than a year before the surrender of Japan - in October 1944 - "kamikaze" entered the battle. The first kamikaze attack was carried out on October 21, 1944 by Lieutenant Kuno, who damaged the ship "Australia". And on October 25, 1944, the first successful attack of an entire kamikaze unit under the command of Lieutenant Yuki Seki took place, during which an aircraft carrier and a cruiser were sunk, and another 1 aircraft carrier was damaged. But, although the main targets of the "kamikaze" were usually enemy ships, the Japanese also had suicide formations to intercept and destroy heavy American B-29 Superfortress bombers by ramming. So, for example, in the 27th regiment of the 10th air division, a unit of specially lightweight Ki-44-2 aircraft was created under the command of Captain Matsuzaki, which bore the poetic name "Shinten" ("Sky Shadow"). These "sky shadow kamikaze" became a real nightmare for the Americans who flew to bomb Japan ...
From the end of the 2nd World War to the present day, historians and amateurs have been arguing: did the kamikaze movement make sense, was it successful enough. In official Soviet military-historical works, 3 negative reasons for the appearance of Japanese suicide bombers were usually singled out: the lack of modern equipment and experienced personnel, fanaticism, and the "voluntary-compulsory" method of recruiting performers of a deadly sortie. While fully agreeing with this, one must, however, admit that under certain conditions this tactic brought certain advantages. In a situation where hundreds and thousands of untrained pilots died uselessly from the crushing attacks of superbly trained American pilots, from the point of view of the Japanese command, it was undoubtedly more profitable if they, with their inevitable death, would cause at least some damage to the enemy. It is impossible not to take into account the special logic of the samurai spirit, which was planted by the Japanese leadership as a model among the entire Japanese population. According to it, a warrior is born in order to die for his emperor, and a “beautiful death” in battle was considered the pinnacle of his life. It was this logic, incomprehensible to a European, that prompted Japanese pilots at the beginning of the war to fly into battle without parachutes, but with samurai swords in the cockpits!
The advantage of suicide tactics was that the range of "kamikaze" in comparison with conventional aircraft doubled (it was not necessary to save gasoline to return back). The losses of the enemy in people from suicide attacks were much greater than the losses of the "kamikaze" themselves; in addition, these attacks undermined the morale of the Americans, who were so terrified of suicide bombers that the American command during the war was forced to classify all information about the "kamikaze" in order to avoid complete demoralization of the personnel. After all, no one could feel protected from sudden suicide attacks - even the crews of small ships. With the same grim obstinacy, the Japanese attacked everything that could swim. As a result, the results of the kamikaze activities were much more serious than the allied command tried to imagine at that time (but more on that in the conclusion).
Similar kamikaze attacks terrified American sailors
In Soviet times, not only was there never even a mention of air rams committed by German pilots in Russian literature, but it was also repeatedly stated that it was impossible for “cowardly fascists” to perform such feats. And this practice continued already in the new Russia until the mid-90s, when, thanks to the appearance in our country of new Western studies translated into Russian, and the development of the Internet, it became impossible to deny the documented facts of the heroism of our main enemy. Today it is already a proven fact: during the 2nd World War, German pilots repeatedly used a ram to destroy enemy aircraft. But the long-term delay in the recognition of this fact by domestic researchers only causes surprise and annoyance: after all, to be convinced of this, even in Soviet times, it was enough just to take a critical look at least at the domestic memoir literature. In the memoirs of Soviet veteran pilots, from time to time there are references to head-on collisions over the battlefield, when the aircraft of the opposing sides collided with each other at opposite angles. What is this if not a mutual ram? And if in the initial period of the war the Germans almost did not use such a technique, then this does not indicate a lack of courage among the German pilots, but that they had at their disposal quite effective weapons of traditional types, which allowed them to destroy the enemy without exposing their lives to unnecessary additional risk.
I do not know all the facts of rams committed by German pilots on different fronts of the 2nd World War, especially since even the participants in those battles often find it difficult to say for sure whether it was a deliberate ram, or an accidental collision in the confusion of high-speed maneuverable combat (this also applies to Soviet pilots , which recorded rams). But even when listing the cases of ramming victories of the German aces known to me, it is clear that in a hopeless situation the Germans boldly went to a deadly clash for them too, often not sparing their lives for the sake of harming the enemy.
If we talk specifically about the facts known to me, then among the first German "rammers" we can name Kurt Sochatzi, who on August 3, 1941 near Kyiv, repelling the attack of Soviet attack aircraft on German positions, destroyed the "unbreakable Cement bomber" Il-2 with a frontal ramming blow. In the collision, Messerschmitt Kurt lost half of his wing, and he had to hastily make an emergency landing right on the flight path. Sokhatzi landed on Soviet territory and was taken prisoner; nevertheless, for the accomplished feat, the command in absentia awarded him the highest award in Germany - the Knight's Cross.
If at the beginning of the war the ramming actions of German pilots, who were victorious on all fronts, were a rare exception, then in the second half of the war, when the situation was not in favor of Germany, the Germans began to use ramming attacks more and more often. So, for example, on March 29, 1944, in the skies of Germany, the famous Luftwaffe ace Hermann Graf rammed an American Mustang fighter, while receiving severe injuries that put him in a hospital bed for two months. The next day, March 30, 1944, on the Eastern Front, the German assault ace, holder of the Knight's Cross Alvin Boerst, repeated the "feat of Gastello". In the Yass area, he attacked a Soviet tank column on the anti-tank version of the Ju-87, was shot down by anti-aircraft guns and, dying, rammed the tank in front of him. Bourst was posthumously awarded the Knight's Cross of Swords. In the West, on May 25, 1944, a young pilot, Oberfenrich Hubert Heckman, in a Bf.109G, rammed Captain Joe Bennett's Mustang, decapitating an American fighter squadron, after which he escaped by parachute. And on July 13, 1944, another famous ace - Walter Dahl - shot down a heavy American B-17 bomber with a ramming blow.
German pilots: fighter ace Herman Graf and attack ace Alvin Boerst
The Germans had pilots who made several rams. For example, in the skies of Germany, while repelling American raids, Hauptmann Werner Gert rammed enemy planes three times. In addition, the pilot of the attack squadron of the Udet squadron, Willy Maksimovich, who destroyed 7 (!) American four-engine bombers with ram attacks, was widely known. Vili was killed over Pillau in a dogfight against Soviet fighters on April 20, 1945.
But the cases listed above are only a small part of the air rams committed by the Germans. In the conditions of the complete technical and quantitative superiority of the Allied aviation over the German one, which was created at the end of the war, the Germans were forced to create units of their "kamikaze" (even before the Japanese!). Already at the beginning of 1944, the formation of special fighter-assault squadrons began in the Luftwaffe to destroy American bombers bombing Germany. The entire personnel of these units, which included volunteers and ... penalized, gave a written obligation to destroy at least one bomber in each sortie - if necessary, by ramming! It was in such a squadron that Vili Maksimovich, mentioned above, was included, and these units were headed by Major Walter Dahl, already familiar to us. The Germans were forced to resort to mass ramming tactics precisely at a time when their former air superiority was nullified by hordes of heavy Allied Flying Fortresses advancing from the west in a continuous stream and armadas of Soviet aircraft pressing from the east. It is clear that the Germans adopted such tactics not from a good life; but this does not in the least detract from the personal heroism of the German fighter pilots, who voluntarily decided to sacrifice themselves to save the German population, who were dying under American and British bombs ...
Commander of fighter-assault squadrons Walter Dahl; Werner Gert, who rammed 3 "Fortresses";
Vili Maksimovich, who destroyed 7 "Fortresses" with rams
The official adoption of ramming tactics required the Germans to create appropriate equipment. So, all fighter-assault squadrons were equipped with a new modification of the FW-190 fighter with reinforced armor that protected the pilot from enemy bullets at the moment of approaching the target closely (in fact, the pilot sat in an armored box that completely covered him from head to toe). The best test pilots practiced methods of rescuing a pilot from an aircraft damaged by a ramming attack with attack aircraft - the commander of German fighter aircraft, General Adolf Galland, believed that attack fighters should not be suicide bombers, and did everything possible to save the lives of these valuable pilots ...
The assault version of the FW-190 fighter, equipped with a fully armored cockpit and solid armored glass, allowed German pilots
get close to the "Flying Fortresses" and make a deadly ram
When the Germans, as allies of Japan, learned about the kamikaze tactics and the high performance of the Japanese suicide pilot squads, as well as the psychological effect produced by the kamikaze on the enemy, they decided to transfer the eastern experience to the western lands. At the suggestion of Hitler's favorite, the famous German test pilot Hanna Reitsch, and with the support of her husband, Oberst General of Aviation von Greim, a manned projectile with a cabin for a suicide pilot was created on the basis of the V-1 winged bomb at the end of the war ( which, however, had a chance to use a parachute over the target). These man-bombs were intended for massive strikes on London - Hitler hoped to use total terror to force Britain out of the war. The Germans even created the first detachment of German suicide bombers (200 volunteers) and began their training, but they did not have time to use their "kamikaze". The inspirer of the idea and the commander of the detachment, Hana Reitsch, came under another bombing of Berlin and ended up in the hospital for a long time, and General Galland immediately disbanded the detachment, considering the idea of death terror to be insanity ...
The manned analogue of the V-1 rocket - Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg, and the inspirer of the idea of \u200b\u200bthe "German kamikaze" Hana Reitsch
Conclusion:
So, based on the foregoing, we can conclude that ramming, as a form of combat, was characteristic not only of Soviet pilots - pilots of almost all countries participating in the battles made ramming.
Another thing is that our pilots carried out much more ramming than the "foreigners". In total, during the war, Soviet aviators, at the cost of the death of 227 pilots and the loss of more than 400 aircraft, managed to destroy 635 enemy aircraft in the air by ramming. In addition, Soviet pilots made 503 land and sea rams, of which 286 were performed on attack aircraft with a crew of 2 people, and 119 - bombers with a crew of 3-4 people. Thus, in terms of the number of pilots who died in suicide attacks (at least 1000 people!), the USSR, together with Japan, undeniably dominates the gloomy list of countries whose pilots sacrificed their lives extensively to achieve victory over the enemy. However, it must be admitted that the Japanese still surpassed us in the field of "purely Soviet form of combat." If we evaluate only the effectiveness of the "kamikaze" (operating since October 1944), then at the cost of the lives of more than 5000 Japanese pilots, about 50 enemy warships were sunk and about 300 warships were damaged, of which 3 sunk and 40 damaged were aircraft carriers with a huge number of aircraft on board .
So, in terms of the number of rams, the USSR and Japan are far ahead of the rest of the warring countries. Undoubtedly, this testifies to the courage and patriotism of the Soviet and Japanese pilots, however, in my opinion, it does not detract from the same merits of the pilots of other countries participating in the war. When a hopeless situation developed, not only the Russians and the Japanese, but also the British, Americans, Germans, Bulgarians, and so on. etc. went to the ram, risking their own lives for the sake of victory. But they went only in a hopeless situation; regularly using complex expensive equipment in the role of a banal "cleaver" is a stupid and costly business. My opinion: the massive use of rams speaks not so much of the heroism and patriotism of a particular nation, but of the level of its military equipment and the preparedness of the flight personnel and command, which constantly put their pilots in a hopeless situation. In the air units of countries in which the command skillfully led the units, creating a superiority of forces in the right place, whose aircraft had high combat characteristics, and the pilots were well trained, the need to ram the enemy simply did not arise. But in the air units of countries in which the command was not able to concentrate forces on the main direction, in which the pilots did not really know how to fly, and the planes had mediocre or even low flight characteristics, the ram became almost the main form of combat. That is why at the beginning of the war, having the best aircraft, the best commanders and pilots, the Germans actually did not use rams. When the enemy created more advanced aircraft and outnumbered the Germans, and the Luftwaffe lost the most experienced pilots in numerous battles and no longer had time to properly train the newcomers, the ramming method entered the arsenal of German aviation and reached the absurdity of "man-bombs" ready to fall on the heads civilian population...
In this regard, I would like to note that just at the time when the Japanese and Germans began the transition to the "kamikaze" tactics, in the Soviet Union, which also widely used air rams, the commander of the USSR Air Force signed a very interesting order. It said: “To explain to all personnel of the Red Army Air Force that our fighters are superior in flight and tactical data to all existing types of German fighters ... The use of a“ ram ”in air combat with enemy aircraft is impractical, therefore“ ram ”should be used only in exceptional cases." Leaving aside the qualities of Soviet fighters, whose advantages over the enemy, it turns out, had to be "explained" to front-line pilots, let's pay attention to the fact that at a time when the Japanese and German commands were trying to develop a line of use of suicide bombers, the Soviet was trying to stop the already existing trend Russian pilots to suicidal attacks. And there was something to think about: only in August 1944 - the month preceding the appearance of the order - more air rams were made by Soviet pilots than in December 1941 - during the critical period of fighting for the USSR near Moscow! Even in April 1945, when Soviet aviation had absolute air supremacy, Russian pilots used as many rams as in November 1942, when the offensive near Stalingrad began! And this is despite the "explained superiority" of Soviet technology, the undoubted advantage of the Russians in the number of fighters and, in general, the number of air rams that has been decreasing year by year (in 1941-42 - about 400 rams, in 1943-44 - about 200 rams , in 1945 - more than 20 rams). And everything is explained simply: with an acute desire to beat the enemy, most young Soviet pilots simply did not know how to fly and fight properly. Remember, this was well said in the film “Only Old Men Go to Battle”: “They still don’t know how to fly, shoot too, but EAGLES!”. It was for this reason that Boris Kovzan, who did not know how to turn on the onboard weapons at all, made 3 of his 4 rams. And it is precisely for this reason that the former instructor of the aviation school Ivan Kozhedub, who knew how to fly well, never rammed the enemy in 120 battles he fought, although he had very unfavorable situations. But Ivan Nikitovich coped with them even without the “axe method”, because he had high flight and combat training, and his plane was one of the best in domestic aviation ...
Alexey Stepanov, Petr Vlasov
Samara
Hubert Heckmann 25.05. 1944 rams Captain Joe Bennett's Mustang, depriving an American fighter squadron of leadership
Ram (air)
Poster of the times of the First World War "The feat and death of the pilot Nesterov"
There were frequent cases when a damaged aircraft was sent by a pilot to a land or water target (Gastello, Nikolai Frantsevich, Gribovsky, Alexander Prokofievich). In the Japanese troops during the Second World War, there were special kamikaze units - pilots rammed enemy ships on planes filled with explosives.
July 18, 1981 - the Soviet interceptor Su-15TM (pilot - Kulyapin, Valentin Aleksandrovich) rammed a CL-44 transport aircraft (number LV-JTN, Transportes Aereo Rioplatense, Argentina), which was making a secret transport flight en route Tel Aviv - Tehran and unintentionally invaded the airspace of the USSR over the territory of Armenia. All 4 crew members of the CL-44 were killed, including a British national. Kulyapin successfully ejected, although, according to his later recollections, the plane obeyed the rudders, the engine was running, so it was possible to try to reach the airfield and land. For ramming he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. This is the second case of a jet plane ramming border violators in the history of the Soviet Air Force.
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See what "ram (air)" is in other dictionaries:
One of the methods of air combat. It consists in striking an enemy aircraft with a propeller or wing (after the ammunition is used up). It is the highest manifestation of the courage and will of the pilot. First T. in. committed by a Russian aircraft ... ... Encyclopedia of technology
air ram Encyclopedia "Aviation"
air ram- air ram - one of the methods of air combat. It consists in striking an enemy aircraft with a propeller or wing (after the ammunition is used up). It is the highest manifestation of the courage and will of the pilot. The first T. in. ... ... Encyclopedia "Aviation"
RAM, in military affairs, a weapon, device or combat technique designed to destroy defensive structures, ships, aircraft, tanks and other enemy equipment. In ancient times, a siege weapon was called a ram, used to destroy ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
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The main form of action of fighter aircraft. Air combat is conducted by single aircraft (single combat) or groups of aircraft (group combat) with the aim of destroying the enemy or repulsing his attacks. Variety ... ... Marine Dictionary
Postage stamp of the USSR in 1943 with a picture of Talalikhin's night ramming Ramming an air combat technique designed to disable an enemy aircraft or airship by colliding or cutting off the steering planes with propeller blades (in the case of ... ... Wikipedia
Everyone knows that the first ram was made by staff captain P.N. Nesterov back in 1914. Many people know that the world's first night ram was carried out on October 27, 1941 by the Soviet pilot V. V. Talalikhin. However, the names of the Stalinist falcons, who rammed on the very first day of the Great Patriotic War, for some reason remain in the shadows for many years. It is hard not to agree that their exploits, their readiness to give their lives for the freedom of their native land, are no less significant. The very first who went to the ram during the Great Patriotic War were the pilots of the Leningrad Military District - P. T. Kharitonov and S. I. Zdorovtsev. Which is not surprising: after all, Leningrad was behind them. It was these pilots who became the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, who received this title on July 8, 1941 by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for the feat accomplished in the Great Patriotic War. But there were other heroes who made a ram on June 22, 1941, and their names are practically not known to a wide circle of people. Let's restore the events of that time and name them.
Literally in the first moments of the war at 4 o'clock in the morning, a link of the fighter regiment No. 124 under the command of junior lieutenant D. V. Kokarev rose to intercept the enemy. Almost above the runway, he saw the fascist Dornier Do 215. Having laid a turn, Kokarev's MiG-3 took an advantageous position for opening fire. And then it turned out that the machine guns had failed. How to be? The Nazi was already turning the car back on its course. The decision was ripe instantly: Kokarev increased engine speed, came close to Dornier and over the city of Zambrow hit him with propeller blades on the tail. The bomber, having lost control, spun and crashed to the ground. So at 4:15 am on June 22, 1941, one of the first rams was made in the sky of the Great Patriotic War. Kokarev managed to land his damaged aircraft. After the ramming, the brave pilot fought in the skies of Moscow and Leningrad, made more than 100 sorties and shot down 5 Nazi aircraft. He died in the battle for the city of Lenin on October 12, 1941.
Almost simultaneously with Dmitry Vasilyevich Kokarev, piloting the I-16 fighter, the commander of the fighter regiment No. 46, Senior Lieutenant I. I. Ivanov, also rammed. He made it at 4 hours and 25 minutes near the city of Zhovkva (now part of the Lviv region of Ukraine). It is significant that in the same place, in 1914, Pyotr Nesterov also made his air ramming. On August 2, 1941, Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Ivanov's feat was immortalized by the fact that his name was given to one of the streets in the city of Shchelkovo.
At dawn on June 22, 1941, the deputy squadron commander for the political part of the fighter regiment No. 127, senior political instructor A. S. Danilov, with his pilots, patrolled over the city of Grodno (Belarus). Suddenly, fascist bombers and fighters began to approach the city from different sides. The squadron spread out. Group air battles ensued. Danilov shot down two enemy planes. But in the whirlwind of air combat, they used up all the ammunition. Then, approaching the enemy aircraft closely, A.S. Danilov sent his I-153 to the enemy machine and chopped off its wing with a propeller. The Nazi plane flared up and began to fall. Soon Pravda published a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on awarding A. S. Danilov the Order of Lenin posthumously. But Andrei Stepanovich did not die. Seriously wounded, he landed on the plane. The collective farmers of the village of Cherlen delivered the brave pilot to the medical battalion. After recovery, the senior political instructor Danilov returned to duty and fought air battles on the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts. The end of the war found A. S. Danilov on the Trans-Baikal Front.
At 05:15, in the area of the airfield located near the city of Stanislav (now the Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk), a pilot of the 12th Fighter Aviation Regiment, Komsomol member, junior lieutenant L. G. Butelin took an air battle. Having shot down one Junkers Ju-88, he rushed to pursue another enemy aircraft, which was trying to break through to the airfield. The Junkers were quite tenacious machines, it was not so easy to shoot them down, having only machine guns on the fighter. It was not possible to shoot down the second plane with airborne fire. All ammunition was used up. And then Butelin sent his plane to the bomber.
At 05:20, the deputy squadron commander of the fighter regiment No. 33, Lieutenant S. M. Gudimov, took to the air, having the task of repelling a raid by Henkel He-111 bombers on the Belarusian city of Pruzhany. S. M. Gudimov managed to shoot down one bomber. During the battle, the lieutenant's fighter was hit and caught fire. S. M. Gudimov rammed the second Henkel with a burning fighter.
At 0700, over the airfield in the Belarusian village of Cherlen, which was raided by 54 enemy aircraft, the squadron commander of the high-speed bomber aviation regiment No. 16, Captain A. S. Protasov, took to the air under fire. In an air battle, despite the fact that Me-109 fighters attacked his plane, Protasov's crew managed to shoot down an enemy bomber. The captain rammed the second fascist bomber with his Pe-2. It was the first ram in the air on a bomber during the outbreak of World War II.
At 08:35, pilots of the fighter regiment No. 126 Yevgeny Panfilov and Grigory Alaev started an air battle with nine Me-110s in the area of their airfield. Two Nazi cars were shot down. Lieutenant Alaev died in an unequal battle. Panfilov went to ram. When hit by an enemy aircraft, he was thrown out of the cockpit. He landed safely with a parachute. In the future, Panfilov fought as part of the 148th, and then the 254th Fighter Aviation Regiments on the Southwestern Front. The brave pilot died in an air battle on August 12, 1942.
At 10 o'clock in the morning, Pyotr Sergeevich Ryabtsev accomplished his feat over Brest. Here is what is written about him in the history of the fighter regiment No. 123: “4 fighters, Captain Mozhaev, lieutenants Zhidov, Ryabtsev and Nazarov, entered into battle with eight German Me-109 fighters. The plane of Lieutenant Zhidov was hit and went down. Three fascists from above began to attack him, but Captain Mozhaev, covering Zhidov's exit from the battle, shot down one of the fascist fighters with a well-aimed machine-gun burst, and the second "Messer" was intercepted by Lieutenant Zhidov and set on fire. At the end of the battle, Lieutenant Ryabtsev had used up all the ammunition. But Ryabtsev, ignoring the danger to life, led the plane to ram the enemy.
The deputy squadron commander of the fighter regiment No. 67, senior lieutenant A. I. Moklyak, continued counting the ram strikes of the first day of the war. In an air duel over Moldova, he shot down two enemy vehicles. Having used up all the ammunition, Moklyak rammed the third fascist bomber.
On the first day of the Great Patriotic War, a fascist aircraft was also destroyed by a ramming blow and the commander of the fighter regiment No. 728, junior lieutenant N. P. Ignatiev. “Where, in what country could such a method of attack as a ram be born,” wrote the famous ace, three times Hero of the Soviet Union A. I. Pokryshkin. - Only here, among the pilots who are infinitely devoted to their Motherland, who put it above everything, above their own lives ... A ram is not a daring, not a senseless risk, a ram is a weapon of courageous Soviet soldiers who skillfully owned an aircraft. Ram required virtuoso possession of the machine.
During the Great Patriotic War, more than five hundred pilots carried out ramming attacks on the enemy. Ramming was carried out not only on fighters, but also on attack aircraft and bombers. More than half of our pilots, after ramming enemy aircraft, managed to save their combat vehicles. Two rams during the war years were made by 25 pilots. There were pilots who made three rams, this is the deputy squadron commander, senior lieutenant A.S. Khlobystov and senior lieutenant B.I. Kovzan.
Studying the history of air rams committed on June 22, 1941, it is impossible to bypass one more detail. All the pilots who decided to ram were either members of the Komsomol, or communists, or candidates for the party. Let everyone draw their own conclusions.
Sources:
Burov A.V. Your heroes, Leningrad.
Abramov A.S. Courage is an inheritance.
Immortal deeds. Digest of articles.
Burov A.V. Fiery sky.
Zhukova L.N. I choose ram.
History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. 1941-1945.
Wings of the Motherland. Digest of articles.
Smirnov S.S. There were great wars.
Shingarev S.I. I'm going to ram.
Aviation and astronautics 1971 No. 6.
Aviation and astronautics 1979 No. 8.
Aviation and astronautics, 1991 No. 6.
Neither the Covenant nor the Koran will help now.
What to press on an empty trigger? ..
Ahead of the plane - I'm going to ram,
The brain feeling every cell.
Morozovlit
AT
the air ram of World War II is not always a gesture of despair and heroic suicide.
For an experienced Soviet pilot, this is a type of combat, a maneuver during which the enemy died, and the pilot and his car remained unharmed.
On November 5, 1941, a circular was received by the combat units of the German Air Force Reichsmarschall Goering, which demanded: "... do not approach Soviet aircraft closer than 100 meters in order to avoid ramming." This decision was made at the direction of Hitler after a long "persuade" of the commanders of aviation units, who considered such "tactics" humiliating for the famous aces of the Reich. After all, quite recently the Fuhrer himself told them: "The Slavs will never understand anything in an air war - this is a weapon of powerful people, a German form of combat." "No one will ever be able to achieve an advantage in the air over the German aces!" - echoed the commander of the fascist Air Force Goering.
But the air ramming of the first days of the war made these boastful speeches forgotten. And this was the first disgrace of the "German form of combat" and the first moral victory of the Soviet pilots.
Until June 22, 1941, fascist pilots did not have to meet in Europe with such a tactic as an air ram. But on the very first day of the attack on the USSR, the Luftwaffe lost 16 aircraft at once as a result of ram attacks by Soviet pilots.
On June 22, 1941, at 4:25 am, the first air ram of the Second World War was carried out near the city of Dubno, Rivne region.
It was made by a native of the village of Chizhovo, Shchelkovsky District (now part of the city of Fryazino), Moscow Region, Deputy Squadron Commander of the 46th Fighter Aviation Regiment senior lieutenant Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov.
At dawn on June 22, 1941, Senior Lieutenant Ivanov flew out on alert at the head of the I-16 flight to intercept a group of German aircraft approaching the Mlynov airfield. In the air, our pilots found 6 Xe-111 bombers. Ivanov led the link in the attack on the enemy. Arrows "Heinkel" opened fire on the fighters. Coming out of the dive, our planes repeated the attack. One of the bombers was shot down. The rest, dropping bombs indiscriminately, began to leave to the west. After the attack, both wingmen went to their airfield, as, while maneuvering, they used up almost all the fuel. Ivanov also decided to land. At this time, another Xe-111 appeared over the airfield. Ivanov rushed towards him. Soon he ran out of ammunition and was running out of fuel. Then, in order to prevent the bombing of the airfield, Ivanov went to ram. From the impact, the Heinkel, piloted, as it turned out later, by non-commissioned officer H. Volfeil, lost control, crashed into the ground and exploded on his bombs. The entire crew died in the process. But Ivanov's plane was also damaged. Due to the low altitude, the pilot was unable to use the parachute and died.
On August 2, 1941, Senior Lieutenant Ivanov I.I. posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
Around the same time as Ivanov, near the Polish city of Zambrow Dmitry Kokorev ram shot down a fascist intelligence officer, who was leaving to the west with a captured film. Then the Soviet pilot made an emergency landing and returned to his regiment on foot.
At 5.15 near Galich, destroying one "Junkers" by fire, rammed the second Leonid Butelin. The Soviet light aircraft was killed, but the enemy's bombs did not fall on the combat positions of our troops.
At 5.20, repelling a raid of enemy aircraft on Pruzhany, near Brest, he shot down a Xe-111, and the second one destroyed his burning "hawk" with a ram, mortally wounded Stepan Gudimov.
Between six and seven o'clock in the morning, a fascist plane was struck by a ram Vasily Loboda in the Shavli region in the Baltics. Died…
At 7.00 over the airfield in Cherlyany, having shot down an enemy plane, rammed the second one and died the death of a hero Anatoly Protasov.
At 8.30, having driven away a group of "Junkers" from the airfield and continuing to patrol over it, Evgeny Panfilov and Georgy Alaev entered into battle with a group of "Messers", and when Alaev's plane was shot down, and Panfilov ran out of ammunition, he went to ram, driving the enemies away from the airfield. He landed by parachute.
At 10.00 in an unequal battle over Brest (four of our aircraft against eight fascist ones) rammed the enemy Petr Ryabtsev, soon ascended into the sky again.
The list of heroic rams of the first day of the war was continued on different sectors of the front, Alexander Moklyak over Bessarabia, Nikolai Ignatiev near Kharkov, Ivan Kovtun over the city of Stryi...
June 22, 1941 pilot Andrey Stepanovich Danilov single-handedly took the fight with nine enemy aircraft. He managed to shoot down two bombers, but at that time enemy fighters appeared. A fascist shell hit the wing of the "gull", Danilov was wounded by shrapnel. The watch, which was in his breast pocket, saved his life, protected him from a bullet. The pilot saw the self-confident face of the German pilot and understood that his plane would soon be shot down by the Nazis. And then Danilov, having squandered all the ammunition, directed his “gull” at the enemy and rammed the wing of the Messerschmitt with a propeller.
The enemy fighter began to fall. The Seagull also lost control, but by a desperate effort of will, the experienced pilot Danilov, bleeding, brought the plane into level flight and, with the landing gear retracted, managed to land it on a field with rye.
The first aerial ramming in the sky of the Moscow region was made by the deputy squadron commander of the 177th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 6th Fighter Aviation Corps of the Air Defense Forces Junior Lieutenant Viktor Vasilyevich Talalikhin. On the night of August 7, 1941, on an I-16 near Podolsk, he shot down a Xe-111 bomber. On August 8, 1941, "for the exemplary performance of the combat missions of the command on the front of the fight against German fascism and the courage and heroism shown at the same time," he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The first ramming by an aircraft of an enemy mechanized column was made by a resident of the village of Khlebnikovo near Moscow (now part of the city of Dolgoprudny), during the war years - squadron commander Captain Nikolai Frantsevich Gastello.
On June 26, 1941, a unit under the command of Captain Gastello flew to the Molodechno area, consisting of two DB-3f heavy bombers. The second plane was controlled senior lieutenant Fyodor Vorobyov, flew with him as a navigator Lieutenant Anatoly Rybas. During the attack of a cluster of German vehicles, Gastello's plane was shot down. According to the reports of Vorobyov and Rybas, Gastello's burning plane rammed a mechanized column of enemy equipment. At night, peasants from a nearby village removed the corpses of the pilots from the plane and, wrapping the bodies in parachutes, buried them near the bomber's crash site.
On July 5, 1941, the feat of Gastello was first mentioned in the evening report of the Soviet Information Bureau: “The squadron commander Captain Gastello performed a heroic feat. An enemy anti-aircraft gun shell hit the gasoline tank of his aircraft. The fearless commander sent the plane engulfed in flames to the accumulation of vehicles and gasoline tanks of the enemy. Dozens of German vehicles and tanks exploded along with the hero's plane.
July 26, 1941 Gastello was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In Dolgoprudny, next to school number 3, bearing the name of Nikolai Gastello, a monument was erected to the Hero.
The mighty will of the Creator of the world.
Called him to a great feat.
And crowns the hero with eternal glory.
I chose him as an instrument of revenge ...
Staff Captain P.N. Nesterov
Air ramming as a form of air combat
In 1908, on the pages of the newspaper "Russian invalid", the official press organ of the military department, a large article "On the military significance of airplanes" appeared. In it, the author put forward the idea of attracting special combat airplanes “designed for squadron combat in the air” to fight “for the dominance of the state in the air element”.
At the same time, the author believed that: “(an airplane is) an aircraft ... generally fragile and therefore any collision with opponents in the air, chest to chest, must inevitably end in the death of both aircraft that collided for boarding. There can be neither a winner nor a loser here, therefore, this must be a fight with maneuvering. A few years later, the prediction of the author of the article was confirmed. In June 1912, the first air collision in the history of world aviation took place at the military airfield in Douai (France). When performing morning flights in the air at an altitude of 50 m, biplanes piloted by Captain Dubois and Lieutenant Penian collided. When they fell, both aviators died. In October 1912, a similar incident occurred in Germany, in May 1913 - in Russia. At the Gatchina airfield of the aviation department of the Officer Aeronautical School (AO OVSH), during training flights at an altitude of 12 - 16 m, the Newports of Lieutenant V.V. Dybovsky and "Farman" Lieutenant A.A. Kovanko. The pilots escaped with minor injuries.
In total, for the period from 1912 until the outbreak of World War I, air collisions accounted for 6% of the total number of accidents in world aviation.
In order to avoid an air collision during troop maneuvers, Russian and foreign pilots were strongly recommended to fight at a certain distance from each other. The idea of air combat itself was not rejected in the military department. To conduct it, it was proposed to arm airplanes with guns or automatic weapons. This idea was reflected in the already mentioned article “On the Military Significance of Airplanes”: “A gun, maybe a light machine gun, a few hand grenades - this is all that can make up the armament of a flying projectile. Such armament is quite enough to disable an enemy airplane and force it to descend, because a rifle bullet that hits successfully will stop the motor car or put the aeronaut out of action, a hand grenade that hits successfully will do the same, at close distances - thrown by hand, and at more far distance - from the same gun.
In the autumn of 1911, during the large maneuvers of the troops of the Warsaw Military District, according to a pre-approved plan, two airplanes carried out a successful attack on the airship of a mock enemy. According to the district command, the presence of airborne weapons could lead to the destruction of a controlled balloon. But the lack of such urgently required the search for other forms of influence on the enemy aircraft.
A certain sensation among the pilots was caused by the proposal of one of the theorists of domestic military aviation, mechanical engineer Lieutenant N.A. Yatsuka. In the summer of 1911, he published an article “On Combat in the Air” in the journal “Bulletin of Aeronautics”, where he wrote: “It is possible that in exceptional cases pilots will decide to ram someone else’s airplane with their airplane.”
In his work “Aeronautics in the Naval War” (1912), Nikolai Aleksandrovich supported the idea of an “air ram” that he had previously voiced, but with a different meaning. “There is nothing impossible,” Yatsuk wrote, “that the next war will show us cases when an aeronautical apparatus, in order to interfere with the reconnaissance of an air enemy, sacrifices itself by hitting it in order to cause it to fall, even at the cost of its death. Receptions of this kind, of course - an extreme. Fighting in the air will be the most bloody as a percentage of the number involved in it, since the damaged vehicles will mostly quickly fall to the ground with all their crews. However, his views remained unclaimed due to insufficient knowledge of the very nature of air combat.
Differently than others, the idea of an air ram was perceived by a military pilot acting. commander of the 11th corps squadron of the 3rd aviation company, Lieutenant P.N. Nesterov, seeing in it the possibility of turning an aircraft into a military weapon.
At the big autumn maneuvers of the troops of the Kyiv Military District in 1913, he showed in practice how to force an air enemy to refuse to carry out his mission. Taking advantage of the advantage in speed (about 20 km / h), Pyotr Nikolayevich, on his Nieuport-IV apparatus, imitated the attack of the Farman-VII, piloted by Lieutenant V.E. Hartmann, forcing the latter to periodically change the course of his flight. “After the fourth attack, Hartmann shook his fist at Nesterov and flew back without completing reconnaissance.” It was the first imitation of air combat in domestic practice.
Lieutenant P.N. Nesterov near the Nieuport IV aircraft.
11th corps squadron
After landing, Nesterov was told that such an attack by an enemy aircraft was possible only in peacetime, and in war these maneuvers were unlikely to affect the enemy. Pyotr Nikolaevich thought about it and then answered with conviction: "It will be possible to hit him from above with wheels." Subsequently, the pilot repeatedly returned to the issue of ramming and proved its possibility, while allowing two options.
The first is to rise above the enemy airplane, and then, in a steep dive, hit the wheels on the end of the enemy's wing: the enemy airplane will be shot down, and you yourself can safely glide. The second is to crash into the tail of the enemy with a screw and break his rudders. The screw will shatter, but it is possible to glide safely. We must not forget that there were no parachutes yet.
In foreign countries in the prewar years, air combat between airplanes was initially denied. For example, in Germany, where the rapid development of aviation began in 1912, the latter were considered only as means of reconnaissance and communications. Airplanes were armed with light small arms in the form of a revolver or a carbine in case of a forced landing behind enemy lines. Meanwhile, the first successful tests of aviation as a strike air weapon during the Tripolitan (1911 - 1912) and 1st Balkan (1912 - 1913) wars convinced many leading European countries of the need to create special combat aircraft. At this time, information appeared that a special metal, high-speed fighter aircraft had been built in Germany, which had passed successful experimental tests. This was the reason for the Frenchman R. Esnault-Peltri to develop, together with artillery specialists, a project of the same fighter. Detailed specifications were strictly secret.
After the maneuvers of the St. Petersburg Military District in August 1913 in Russia, the question arose openly of the need to form fighter aircraft in the Russian army and equip airplanes with automatic weapons to combat enemy reconnaissance aircraft. However, by the beginning of the war, the aviation units of the Russian army remained practically unarmed.
Airplane as a means of armed struggle
The beginning of the First World War was characterized by the intensity of flights by aircraft of the belligerents, mainly for reconnaissance purposes. Already at the beginning of the war, their first combat clashes in the air were recorded. The main means of defeating the enemy, which was used in air combat, was the personal weapon of the pilot. For pistol fire to be effective, it was necessary to get close to an enemy aircraft at a distance of up to 50 m. Simultaneously with the fire impact, the pilots used the so-called. "reception of intimidation", that is, active maneuvering near an enemy vehicle with the threat of a collision with it in the air in order to force the enemy to abandon the task.
On August 17, 1914, the following information was published on the pages of the daily newspaper Russkoye Slovo: “An interesting message has been received about the air struggle between Russian and German pilots. An unexpected enemy airplane appeared over the line of Russian troops. Our pilot expressed a desire to force the German to descend. He quickly took off, approached the enemy and forced him to land with a series of turns. German pilot arrested. In the future, this technique was used repeatedly.
This circumstance led the Russian command to the idea of the possibility of using captured equipment for the needs of the Russian army. The commanders of aviation detachments at the front were now strongly recommended, if possible, not to destroy, but to forcibly land enemy vehicles. Later, within the walls of the capital plant of the Joint Stock Company of Aeronautics V. A. Lebedev, they received a new life. There were reasons for this. Firstly, the military department equally estimated the cost of restoration and newly built airplanes. Secondly, familiarity with other people's technologies and technical solutions made it possible to enrich their own design experience.
However, according to the pilots themselves, a forced landing could only concern a single enemy vehicle, while their group raid required other methods of influence, up to the destruction of the latter. This opinion was also shared by the staff captain of the 9th Siberian Rifle Brigade P.N. Nesterov, by the beginning of the war, commander of the 11th Corps Squadron of the 3rd Army of the South-Western Front (SWF). He believed that if the enemy does not stop flying over our territory and refuses to surrender, he must be shot down. To resolve this issue, it was necessary to arm airplanes with light machine guns, which was confirmed in one of the orders of the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander. In particular, it stated: “In order to combat enemy aircraft, it seems necessary to arm the most lifting of our airplanes. For which it is considered necessary to use Madsen automatic guns. However, automatic weapons at that time were not enough to the installed kit in the field units.
The lack of reliable weapons in aviation, the absurd "valuable instructions" of military officials "to shoot buckshot from the hand ..." forced Nesterov and other aviators to invent exotic weapons like a bomb "suspended on a long cable ... to destroy enemy airships", to lower "thin copper wire from the tail of the aircraft with a load, so that, cutting off the road to an enemy aircraft, break its screw”, “adapt a sawtooth knife to the tail of the aircraft and ... rip open the shell of airships and tethered observation balloons”, throw “artillery shells instead of bombs”.
Without abandoning the views of N.A. Yatsuka on the use of power (ramming) strikes, Pyotr Nikolaevich was still a supporter of technical and maneuverable methods of fighting the enemy. Unfortunately, the tragic death of a remarkable pilot ruled out the possibility of implementing his inventions in the Russian school of air combat.
The hunt for the Albatross is a step into immortality
During the Battle of Gorodok (September 5 - 12, 1914), the Austro-Hungarian command made an attempt to defeat the Russian 3rd and 8th armies of the South-Western Front. But the counteroffensive that followed on September 4 in the zone of our three armies (9th, 4th and 5th) forced the enemy troops to begin a hasty retreat. Within a few days, our advanced units reached and captured the important center of Eastern Galicia - Lvov. Preparation for the upcoming operations required a large regrouping of troops. To open up their new positions, locations of military command and control bodies, firing points, field airfields, and the transport network, the enemy made extensive use of his air forces. In addition to collecting reconnaissance information in the near rear of the Russian troops, enemy pilots, if possible, bombarded our military installations, including the airfield of the 11th Corps Squadron. On September 7, one of the Austrian airplanes dropped a bomb “(a sample of an artillery shell) on his airfield, which, having fallen, buried itself in the sand and did not explode.”
One of the prominent Austrian observer pilots, Lieutenant Baron von Friedrich Rosenthal, the owner of vast lands in Eastern Galicia, was involved in combat work. He made his flights on an airplane of the Albatross type, designed and built with his personal participation. In the zone of special attention of the enemy apparatus was the city of Zholkiev, Lvov region, where the estate of Baron F. Rozental was located, temporarily occupied by the headquarters of the 3rd Russian army. The appearance of enemy aircraft in this area caused extreme irritation among the army command. Senior commanders immediately accused the flight personnel of the 3rd aviation company of insufficient activity in the fight against the air enemy.
On September 7, 1914, the Quartermaster General of the Army Headquarters, Major General M.D. Bonch-Bruevich demanded from the pilots to exclude the flights of the Austrians in the Russian rear. Staff Captain P.N. Nesterov promised to take drastic measures to solve this problem.
Initially, the question of an air ram was not raised at all. Considering the possibility of the appearance of the Albatross unaccompanied (before that, he flew in a group of three airplanes), it was decided to capture him by force landing. To this end, on the morning of September 8, P.N. Nesterov with his deputy lieutenant A.A. Kovanko worked out the indicated option over the airfield. However, further events began to develop according to a different scenario. Already at the start, a cargo with a cable broke off at Nesterov's single-seat airplane, which he expected to use when meeting with the enemy. When landing after a training flight, the engine suddenly went haywire, and at the direction of Pyotr Nikolaevich, the mechanics began to check its valves. The appearance of the enemy "Albatross" in the sky was an unpleasant surprise for the Russian pilots. Without waiting for the troubleshooting on his apparatus, Nesterov rushed to Kovanko's car. In order not to risk his life, Pyotr Nikolaevich categorically refused to let his deputy fly with him.
Rapidly gaining a height of up to 1500 m on the Morane-Saulnier G (according to other sources - up to 2000 m), he attacked the Albatross from top to bottom. Witnesses of this unusual battle saw that after a sharp collision, the enemy's airplane pecked with its nose and began to randomly fall. Nesterov's apparatus swept on, then went down in a spiral. At an altitude of about 50 m, "Moran" swung sharply and he fell down like a stone. At this moment, the figure of the pilot separated from the apparatus.
Scheme of a ram by P. N. Nesterov
Aircraft crash site map
Air ram. Poster from the First World War. 1914
When examining the corpse of Nesterov, doctors testified that he had a fracture of the spine and minor injuries to the skull. According to their conclusion, the fracture of the spine could not be the result of a fall on soft ground. Staff Captain P.N. Nesterov died in the air, as a result of a collision of airplanes. The pilots, who knew Pyotr Nikolaevich closely, immediately doubted that he had deliberately rammed an air enemy. They believed that Nesterov intended to force the crew of the Albatross to descend on the airfield, holding it by skillful maneuvering under the threat of a ram. Pyotr Nikolayevich himself, who knew well the statistics of air collisions in the pre-war period and a large percentage of deaths, did not see any particular benefit in the ram for the small Russian aviation, where each device was worth its weight in gold. For the period August - September 1914 alone, the loss of airplanes in the active Russian army amounted to 94 airplanes (45% of the total).
The “Act of Investigation into the Circumstances of the Heroic Death of the Head of the 11th Corps Aviation Detachment, Staff Captain Nesterov” stated: “Staff Captain Nesterov has long expressed the opinion that it is possible to shoot down an enemy air vehicle by hitting the supporting surfaces of the enemy vehicle with the wheels of his own vehicle from above, moreover, he allowed the possibility of a successful outcome for the ramming pilot.
Therefore, most experts agreed that he made an attempt to attack the enemy aircraft with a glancing blow, counting on the psychological effect. According to theoretical calculations, the tangential impact of a light single-seat vehicle could not lead to the destruction of a heavier aircraft, which was a three-seat Albatros with a bomb load. This required either an apparatus of equal weight, or a blow with the entire body of the attacking aircraft. It seems that Nesterov had technical calculations for performing an air ramming in relation to a single-seat vehicle based on an attack of an enemy aircraft of equal mass. The possibility of an air attack in this way by heavy types of airplanes was not even discussed. But, ironically, this is exactly the situation that has developed in the sky of Eastern Galicia. Directing his car at the Austrian airplane, Nesterov lost sight of the fact that he had a heavier and less maneuverable two-seater "Moran-Saulnier" type "Zh". As a result, instead of a tangent hit with the wheels on the wings of the enemy car, he crashed into it with a motor between the two surfaces carrying it, which led to a complete loss of control and the destruction of the latter. According to the official version, this blow caused the death of the Russian pilot himself.
In his book “Khodynka: the runway of Russian aviation”, a specialist in the field of aviation history A. A. Demin gives an assessment of the tragic event made by the famous Soviet scientist V. S. Pyshnov.
Analyzing the ram, he, in particular, noted that the Moran had a very poor forward-down view and it was difficult to accurately determine the distance and hit the Albatross with one wheel. It is possible that turbulent flows from both airplanes and their mutual influence could also contribute. And then, according to Pyshnov, the following could happen: “If the Moran-Zh aircraft had only one elevator of a symmetrical profile, without a fixed part - the stabilizer, the aircraft could not fly with the handle thrown. Since a dive moment acted on the wing in the absence of lift, in the case of an abandoned handle, the aircraft had to go into a dive with a further transition to an inverted flight. As you know, after a ram, which occurred at an altitude of about 1000 m, up to the height of P.N. Nesterov performed a spiral descent, but then the plane went into a dive and fell in an inverted position. This behavior of the aircraft indicates that P. Nesterov lost consciousness and released the control stick; after going into negative angles of attack and a negative value ... (overload) it was thrown out of the aircraft because it was not tied ... ".
Based on the analysis performed, it can be assumed that the pilot lost consciousness not at the time of the ramming, but much later, during a steep spiral due to the weakness of the vestibular apparatus. About the health problems of P.N. Nesterov at the front was later mentioned by his colleagues, in particular the military pilot V. G. Sokolov, who witnessed the deep fainting of Pyotr Nikolayevich after another flight. The intensity of his work is reflected in the journal of combat activities of the 11th Corps Squadron. During the period from August 10 to September 8, 1914, he completed 12 sorties, the total flight time was 18 hours 39 minutes. The last of them (September 8) took only 15 minutes and cost the Russian pilot his life.
Nesterov's body was soon discovered 6 km from the town of Zholkiev in a dry field near a swamp between the airplane and the engine. At 400 m from him, the downed Albatros lay, partially buried in marshy soil. The corpses of two members of his crew (lieutenant F. Rosenthal and non-commissioned officer F. Malin) were discovered immediately. According to some reports, the body of the third crew member, whose name has not been established, was found much later.
For his unparalleled feat, staff captain P.N. Nesterov was the first among Russian pilots who was posthumously awarded the Order of St. George 4th degree and promoted to the rank of captain. The deceased hero was buried on September 13, 1914 at Askold's grave in Kyiv. Later, the ashes of the Russian pilot were transferred to the Lukyanovka cemetery in the capital of Ukraine.
Nesterov's legacy
The tragic outcome of Nesterov's air ram at the beginning called into question the possibility of the pilot who committed it to stay alive.
Doubts were dispelled by another Russian pilot - Lieutenant of the 12th Belgorod Lancers Regiment A. A. Kozakov, who, during an air battle with a two-seat German "Albatross" C.I on March 31, 1915, knocked him down with a "Nesterov" sliding at an angle impact with wheels from above. During the First World War, Kozakov was recognized as the most productive pilot in Russia.
He got acquainted with the advanced views of P. N. Nesterov on the fight against enemy vehicles thanks to the younger brother of the hero Mikhail, a pilot of the Brest-Litovsk corps squadron, who tragically died in the fall of 1914 in a plane crash.
Later, the Allies (British) recognized the air ram (here we are talking about a tangent strike) as one of the forms of Russian air combat, pointing out that when they (Russian pilots) do not have bombs, they rise above the enemy aircraft, and, flying over it, hit him with the bottom of their airplane.
The subsequent equipping of aircraft with automatic weapons pushed aerial rams into the background. It would seem that they inevitably had to go down in history. But in our country they did not abandon the ideas of Pyotr Nesterov, and for a long time the air ram terrified the enemies, and the fearlessness of Soviet pilots aroused sincere admiration and respect in the world. The practice of air boarding (ramming) was inherent in the flight crew of the fighter aircraft of the Air Force and Air Defense Forces for a long time and has not lost its relevance today (in exceptional cases, such a method of air combat is quite possible).
Back in the autumn of 1914, a proposal was made in Russian society to perpetuate the memory of the brave pilot. The initiative was taken by Mr. A. S. Zholkevich (the editorial office of the Novoye Vremya newspaper), starting to raise money in order to acquire several acres of land at the site of the death of the hero for the construction of a memorial obelisk. In the same year, a memorial cross was erected near the town of Zholkiev, and later a monument was erected.
Today, monuments to the brave Russian pilot have been opened in Kyiv and Nizhny Novgorod, a memorial bust has been erected in Kazan, asteroid No. 3071 has been named after him. A special state award of the Russian Federation, the Nesterov Medal, has been established in honor of P. N. Nesterov.
The grave of P. N. Nesterov in Kyiv. Modern look
Monument to P. N. Nesterov in Kyiv on Victory Avenue.
Sculptor E. A. Karpov, architect A. Snitsarev
Memorial plaque in Kyiv on the house on Moskovskaya street,
where pilot P. N. Nesterov lived in 1914
Monument to P.N. Nesterov in Nizhny Novgorod.
The authors of the project are sculptors Honored Artist of the RSFSR A. I. Rukavishnikov and People's Artist of the RSFSR, Corresponding Member
Academy of Arts of the USSR I. M. Rukavishnikov
Memorial sign at the place of death of P. N. Nesterov
| The Nesterov Medal was established by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of March 2, 1994 No. 442 "On State Awards of the Russian Federation". It is awarded to military personnel of the Air Force, aviation of other types and branches of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, the flight crew of civil aviation and the aviation industry for personal courage and courage shown in the defense of the Fatherland and state interests of the Russian Federation, while performing combat service and combat duty, participating in exercises and maneuvers, for excellent performance in combat training and air training. |
Alexey Lashkov,
Senior Research Fellow, Research
Institute of Military History of the Military Academy
General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,
Candidate of Historical Sciences
